Federal Fisheries Service Denies Petition to Protect Imperiled
Rockfish
Government dismisses science showing that popular seafood species is threatened
with extinction, say environmental groups

SAN FRANCISCO (November 14, 2002) - The National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) has denied a petition
by environmental groups to list a variety of Pacific red snapper as a
threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Environmentalists
charged the federal agency with ignoring its own findings that the fish
called "bocaccio" has declined at an alarming rate.

"The government's refusal to list bocaccio means
this fish may go the way of other species hunted to extinction,"
said Karen Garrison, co-director of NRDC's (Natural Resources Defense
Council) oceans initiative. "The fisheries service's own data show
these fish have declined by 96 percent since 1969. The fish, fishermen
and consumers all will suffer if we allow this ecologically and economically
valuable fish to disappear forever."

The environmentalists petitioned to list the central/southern
population of bocaccio - which ranges from Northern California to Mexico
- based on numerous studies documenting its decline. Bocaccio once was
the dominant species of rockfish caught by trawl fishermen on the Pacific
coast. At the height of the fishery, over 7,000 metric tons were landed
a year. By 1998, the catch had dropped to 285 metric tons.

The Pacific Fisheries Management Council, a quasi-governmental
body composed of government officials and fishing industry representatives,
has proposed to allow continued harvests of bocaccio. According to the
council's own analysis, there is only a 50 percent chance that its management
plan will succeed in rebuilding bocaccio populations by the year 2172.

"It's unfortunate that once again the Bush administration
has chosen to ignore the law and sacrifice sound science in making this
decision," said Brendan Cummings, an attorney with the Center for
Biological Diversity. "Only ESA listing will ensure that the necessary
steps are taken to bring about recovery of the bocaccio."

The bocaccio life cycle makes the fish particularly
vulnerable. It is a long-lived species (individuals can live more than
40 years), which takes several years to reach sexual maturity, and it
may produce young that survive into adulthood only once in a decade. Fishing
pressure has been so intense, according to the environmentalists' petition,
that even following years with good survival rates, most young bocaccio
are likely caught before they can reproduce. In addition, because they
school with other groundfish, bocaccio are often caught as bycatch in
unrecorded numbers and tossed overboard dead.

Many other Pacific groundfish are also in trouble.
Since 1999, NMFS has been forced to declare nine of the 16 groundfish
species that it manages as overfished. Last month federal fisheries managers
acknowledged the severity of the problem and closed much of the Pacific
coast to commercial bottom fishing. But environmentalists say that emergency
fishing regulations are not a substitute for additional measures to protect
imperiled fish from extinction.

"The bocaccio fishing gold rush was brief, and
now the species is in terrible trouble," said Dr. Mark Powell, fish
conservation director for The Ocean Conservancy. "This crisis demonstrates
our nutty approach to fishery management: we subsidize fishing boat construction,
let fishermen write their own rules, and then buy back the boats when
the fish are gone. We need refuge areas to protect fish from high-tech
fishing fleets that have grown too big and too effective."

Instead of relying on desperate measures after fisheries
have already crashed, environmentalists say some areas of the ocean need
to be set aside permanently as places where all fishing and destructive
activities are prohibited. They point to the California Fish and Game
Commission's decision last month to create marine reserves encompassing
nearly 170 square miles of ocean around the Channel Islands. The federal
government is considering similar protections for adjacent waters under
its jurisdiction around the islands.

"California's temporary rockfish conservation
zone, where some kinds of bottom fishing are prohibited, is a necessary
step, but we also need permanently protected areas where the whole web
of life can regenerate," said Garrison. "Marine reserves allow
fish to live and grow undisturbed. It's time to stop responding to crises
and start preventing them. We need these areas as buffers against future
catastrophe, so we don't have threatened species in the first place."